Saturday, September 12, 2015

I sure hope that in the next General Elections, there'd be more independent candidates participating. Winning or losing is secondary. Who knows one day we'd be having a unique political party consisting of independent candidates working together to push through what they sincerely believe to the good of Singapore. Losing election deposit now will be worth it for the future.

The two independent candidates in this year’s General Election — the first such contenders since the 2001 polls — have each lost their election deposit of S$14,500.

Blogger Han Hui Hui, who ran in the single-seat ward of Radin Mas, garnered 10 per cent of the votes in a three-cornered fight won by Mr Sam Tan of the People’s Action Party (PAP). Mr Tan won the seat with 77.25 per cent, or 20,230 votes; while the Reform Party’s Kumar Appavoo received 12.7 per cent.

At Bukit Batok Single Member Constituency, independent candidate Samir Salim Neji garnered only 150 votes, or 0.6 per cent of the total.

Mr Samir, the managing director of software firm Anaplan Asia, was a surprise candidate, turning up out of the blue on Nomination Day to contest against Singapore Democratic Party’s Sadasivam Veriyah and PAP incumbent David Ong.

Mr Ong won Bukit Batok with 73 per cent of votes cast, while Mr Veriyah received 6.4 per cent.

If any of the independent candidate is a fan of an English rockband, Radiohead, he/she may have thought this part of the band song lyric at any time during the election process:

What the hell am I doing here?
I don't belong here...

Don't get me wrong. The appropriateness of the song lyric (the song title is Creep, by the way) is just limited to the above two sentences.